


furious angels will bring you back to me

by openended



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Earth-Minbari War, F/M, Flash Sideways, Rebellion, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt for the AU ficathon:  <i>The Humans lost the Earth-Minbari War, but rather than destroying the planet the Minbari enslave it. Cue Satai Delenn of the Gray Council visiting Earth, and there meeting John Sheridan. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	furious angels will bring you back to me

There is rebellion in the first two years. It is to be expected. Humans are not a species that acclimates easily to serving another. 

The uprisings are disorganized and short-lived, limited to small acts of defiance that merely annoy the Workers in charge of shipyard construction and factory line production. She’s told about these incidents, of course; they’re collected at the end of each weekly report she receives from Earth: names, locations, actions, reactions, sentencing. After three months, she no longer reads the final page in any Earth report. They’re all the same.

Despite their initial reluctance to subservience, the resistance fades away and Humans become a promising workforce for the Minbari. A bit inefficient, with their need for regular sleep and nutrition, but there are enough of them to create effective rotating schedules and soon the Minbari fleet is greater than ever in recorded history and there is even talk of bringing some Humans to Minbar to assist in mining and agriculture. She has begun reading the back page of her reports again.

So it is with some surprise that she hears of a large-scale uprising seven years after the Minbari conquer Earth. She is briefed on the situation by an aide as she travels to Earth, haphazard arrangements made quickly and not quite befitting a Satai of the Grey Council, but speed is more important than protocol in this instance. 

The uprising has been temporarily contained by the Warriors, but was masterfully orchestrated across the entire slave population. It was only after they executed the eighth instigator that someone finally relinquished a name: John Sheridan.

She stares at the name.

_She pushes the hood away from her face and the fabric falls to her shoulders. She raises her head and almost smiles as the room collectively gasps at her new appearance. She knows it will be some time before she is comfortable with the change – and even longer before the others are – but is comforted by the immediate reaction being a gasp of astonishment rather than a gasp of horror. There are others in the room she should attend to and acknowledge, ambassadors that have patiently (and not so patiently) waited for her to emerge that would be appeased by a hint of a smile and a nod of her head, but she cannot take her eyes off of him._

_She stares at him with as much fascination as he stares at her. She blinks._

The aide calls her name and she pretends to have simply been distracted. She listens intently to the rest of his briefing before dismissing him under the pretext of wanting to read the reports for herself. 

By the time they reach Earth, the Warriors have located and captured John Sheridan and brought him to a holding cell.

Delenn has decided that the vision was a quirk of the universe, nothing more.

* * *

_She feels more comfortable with John than she has ever felt with anyone else in her life. They talk of everything and nothing, from station politics to the study of laughter to what it’s like to suddenly be part human to cats and gokks and the universe’s intent on keeping its residents from taking themselves too seriously. She smiles until her cheeks hurt._

_He reluctantly pushes away from the table – he is allowed some considerations as captain of the station, but they’re testing the boundaries as it is – and pays the bill. She takes his offered arm after he explains, smiling widely, where her hand fits in the crook of his elbow and they take the long way back to her quarters._

_There’s a moment at her door, matching smiles and twinkling eyes, but it’s broken by a passing Centauri and she bids him goodnight._

“Enough,” Delenn says in Adronato, transforming her normally-stoic mask from one of discomfort at the flash into one of disgust at the state of the Human in the room on the other side of the glass. She swallows her unsteadiness and hopes that she will not be expected to recall anything that occurred in these rooms while she was experiencing a life that so clearly is hers, but is not.

Perspiration beads on his forehead and his skin has turned ashen underneath the attentions of the Warriors in the room with him. He spits blood onto the concrete floor. It’s an act of defiance, not retreat, and Delenn winces.

One of the Warriors growls, a guttural sound from the back of his throat and looks to her for permission. She shakes her head. No more, for now.

As if noticing for the first time that the glass is transparent, Sheridan raises his head to stare through her.

It isn’t the Warriors he is furious with, for they are simply following orders.

It is _her_.

She holds his gaze and opens her mouth to say – 

_Dead, they’re all dead. Not a single one has survived this terrible plague. She and Lennier are alone in the room full of deceased souls, struggling to retain control of their emotions. She thinks Lennier has failed as he turns from her under the premise of meditating in the corner and she cannot blame him for losing resolve._

_And then the door creaks and strains and opens reluctantly in a breeze of fresh air and relief. She barely has the words out before John’s hands settle comfortingly on her shoulders and draw her into a hug. She dissolves._

– but the words disappear in her throat and she has to brace her hand against the cold wall to remain standing, so real was the vision. She instead orders the Warrior to continue.

She looks through the glass and wonders if he saw it too. But his eyes are closed as he strains against the metal cuffs, pain evident across his face.

* * *

Delenn meditates throughout the night. One is a quirk, two is a coincidence, but three. Three is something to be concerned with.

Despite incredible redesign by the Workers, these quarters are substandard to what she is accustomed. Though the crystalline structures of Minbar have been transplanted and mimicked – both for those Minbari now living on Earth to oversee the labor and for those who merely visit, such as herself – and the adornments are appropriate and the bed satisfactory, the room’s skeleton, what makes it a _room_ , is still Human.

She finds herself not quite as disgusted by that thought as she was even this morning when she arrived on Earth. 

She focuses on the single candle in front of her, her world narrowing down to the flame, and she closes her eyes.

_“Who are you?”_

_“How can you be expected to fight for others if you haven’t the fairest idea who you are?”_

_“You must risk everything on the premise that the universe will not let you die.”_

_**“Who are you?”** _

She shudders with the flashes of pain that her body does not feel and when she opens her eyes, the man in a black suit is not with her, nor is his cane _taptaptap_ ping on the floor.

This is dangerous territory. To be given a glimpse of another universe, one so diametrically opposed from the one she inhabits, is a gift. It is an offering to be treasured, to be accepted with only the most genuine gratitude.

It is not something to go chasing after like a small child whose toy has rolled out of reach.

And yet, Dukhat’s words echo in her mind: the universe has given her what appears to be a puzzle and it would be rude of her to not attempt to solve it.

She closes her eyes again.

_They have passed the test. She has passed. John has passed. They are alive. They are who the universe needs them to be._

_John holds her closely once the Inquisitor frees their bonds. His cane taps twice and then they are encased in blissful silence, and alone. John asks if she is alright, if she is hurt or injured, and she wordlessly shakes her head. The pain was real and she will ache, but it is nothing serious._

_She closes her eyes and rests her head on his shoulder, allowing herself this small moment of comfort – of being Delenn and John – before returning to the scattered pieces of ambassadorial decorum their relationship manages to claim as of late. His hands are warm even through her robes and the perpetual too-cool air of the station and she steps closer into his embrace._

_His arms tighten and she doesn’t wish for a second for him to release her._

Delenn awakens crumpled on the floor of her quarters, neck stiff and candle long since burned to a waxy nub. She asks the computer for the time and decides to spend the remaining hour before she must rise actually in the bed, even though she won’t sleep.

* * *

Though her training is Religious in nature, pacifism is not a trait to befall many Minbari and certainly not her. She is well aware of the tactics and skills possessed by the Warriors and has little difficulty giving the order for the guards to begin the torture again.

Sheridan again refuses to give up the information they need. He may be the leader of the rebellion but Delenn knows rebellions and knows that captured leaders are excellent for morale and dead leaders are even better. It is why she has told the Warriors to keep him alive at all costs.

Even as the Warrior increases the dial and Sheridan’s screams echo off the industrial walls, his recruits and friends and peers are spreading the word of his capture and encouraging action. To stop this uprising before it becomes any worse, they need names of other cell leaders, names of Minbari that are sympathetic to the Human cause (Delenn is not so delusional as to believe that the Humans could have blown up an entire shipyard on their own, not even with years of planning), locations of weapons and supply caches.

She knows deep in her heart that Sheridan will never betray his cause.

He again catches her eye through the glass. She doesn’t have the strength to look away even when it feels like he can see right through her soul.

The air shimmers between them and she gestures – 

_The preparations for the ceremony have gone to waste and she lies in MedLab examining the very dull ceiling above her. After a year and a half of knowing him, she should have learned by now to expect John Sheridan to lift her spirits in the most unexpected of ways._

_And yet she is still surprised when he brings the ceremony to her. She is genuinely touched when he sets his folded uniform on the counter beside her bed; she knows how much the uniform and EarthForce mean to him and what it signifies that he is giving that up. She anticipated his actions, of course, but that does not make them any less important._

_She should be even less shocked by the secret he tells her. She’s known for months now that he cares for her more than as a close friend and confidant, she knows this because she feels the same way about him. Still, her breath catches in her throat when he admits how much he cares about her and she feels a smile tug at her lips. She wants desperately to tell him that the feeling is mutual, that she shares this emotion with him, that she wants to hold on and never let go. But part of the ceremony is that she must remain silent while the others divulge their secrets to her._

_This is not how the ceremony usually progresses. But as she is no longer fully Minbari, she thinks perhaps it was even more successful._

– for the Warrior to stop what he is doing. She had intended for him to continue, but there is a look in Sheridan’s eyes that feels eerily familiar.

“Leave,” she orders. There is a brief, barely noticeable hesitation before the others remember that she is Satai, that she is Grey, and they bow and disappear from the room, from both sides of the glass.

Sheridan watches her as she neatly avoids the unfortunate spills on the floor. Torture has never been a clean endeavor, no matter how much research they put into it.

“You’ve seen it too,” he says. His voice is hoarse, almost a growl, dry with forced dehydration and pain. His words are English, but she’s learned the harsh, ugly Human language as a matter of necessity.

She nods, once, and does not need clarification as to what he means by “it.” They’ve both been offered the same glimpses by the universe. She hides her concern as best she can, though she knows he can see right through any outward façade. 

If only she had seen the visions, or if their visions were different, she would not be so worried. But he _has_ seen them, identical flashes to hers, and she is far more worried than she ever believed possible.

Something is wrong with the universe.


End file.
